This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program (CFDA 47.070) supports research to develop methods for encoding societal values into social media algorithms. The $400,000 award to Stanford University, spanning from Aug 2024 to Jul 2027, aims to create translational science that integrates social science insights and computer science techniques to build social media ranking algorithms that prioritize a pluralistic set of societal objectives, rather than just individual user preferences. The project will develop a library of "societal objective functions" based on rigorous social science theory, and integrate these into feed ranking algorithms through large language models. Large-scale field experiments will assess the real-world impact of this approach. This work seeks to shape a future where social media AI systems can aid in achieving broader societal goals, rather than optimizing solely for individual engagement.
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